And we march that the footprints of Ma'homet's slaves May be washed out in blood from our forefathers' graves. Their spirits are hovering o'er us,

And the sword shall to glory restore us.

II.

Ah! what though no succor advances,

Nor Christendom's chivalrous lances

Are stretched in our aid? — Be the combat our own!
And we'll perish or conquer more proudly alone;

For we've sworn by our country's assaulters,
By the virgins they 've dragged from our altars,
By our massacred patriots, our children in chains,
By our heroes of old, and their blood in our veins,
That, living, we will be victorious,

Or that, dying, our deaths shall be glorious.

III.

A breath of submission we breathe not:

The sword that we've drawn we will sheathe not!
Its scabbard is left where our martyrs are laid,
And the vengeance of ages has whetted its blade.

Earth may hide, waves engulf, fire consume us;
But they shall not to slavery doom us:

--

If they rule, it shall be o'er our ashes and graves:
But we've smote them already with fire on the waves,
And new triumphs on land are before us;

To the charge! Heaven's banner is o'er us.

Our women, O, say,

IV.

This day, shall ye blush for its story? Or brighten your lives with its glory?shall they shriek in despair, Or embrace us from conquest, with wreaths in their hair? Accursed may his memory blacken,

If a coward there be that would slacken

Till we've trampled the turban, and shown ourselves worth Being sprung from, and named for, the godlike of earth! Strike home! - and the world shall revere us

As heroes descended from heroes.

V.

Old Greece lightens up with emotion!

Her inlands, her isles of the ocean,

Fanes rebuilt, and fair towns, shall with jubilee ring,
And the Nine shall new hallow their Helicon's spring.
Our hearths shall be kindled in gladness,

That were cold, and extinguished in sadness;
Whilst our maidens shall dance with their white waving arms,
Singing joy to the brave that delivered their charms,

When the blood of yon Mussulman cravens
Shall have crimsoned the beaks of our ravens !

XLIII.

WASHINGTON AND UNION.

WEBSTER.

In ACTS, EFFECTS, EXISTS, PROSPECTS, TRANSCENDS, sound all the ter minating consonants; in ANOTHER, give a an easy short sound; in MODEL, sound short e; pronounce COLUmns, kŏl·lúmz, NOTHING, nŭth'ing, THEREFORE, therfore; for BORNE, GLORIOUS, SECURITY, see §§ 11, 28; ORDINARY, § 29; NEW, DUTY, § 23.

See in Index, ARCHITECTURE, DESIGN, DRAMA, GONE, SKILLFUL or SKILFUL, SOVEREIGN, THEATRE or THEATER, COLOSSEUM, PARTHENON, WEBSTER.

Delivery. The style is at first didactic, and then earnestly exhortative and argumentative, requiring middle pitch, orotund quality, force between moderate and loud, time medium inclining to slow, falling slides at nearly all the grammatical pauses except the comma; but the word "last" in the three lines of verse quoted from Bishop Berkeley should have the rising slide.

1. WASHINGTON stands at the commencement of a new era, as well as at the head of the New World. A century from the birth of Washington has changed the world. The country of Washington has been the theatre on which a great part of that change has been wrought; and Washington himself a principal agent by which it has been accomplished. His age and his country are equally full of wonders; and of both he is the chief.

2. If the poetical prediction, uttered a few years before his birth, be true; if indeed it be designed by Providence that the grandest exhibition of human character and human affairs shall be made on this theatre of the Western world; if it be true that,

how could this imposing, swelling, final scene be appropriately opened, how could its intense interest be adequately sustained, but by the introduction of just such a character as our Washington ?

3. The spirit of human liberty and of free government, nurtured and grown into strength and beauty in America, has stretched its course into the midst of the nations. Like an emanation from Heaven, it has gone forth, and it will not return void. It must change, it is fast changing, the face of the carth. Our great, our high duty is to show, in our example, that this spirit is a spirit of health as well as a spirit of power; that its benignity is as great as its strength.

4. For all the unborn races of mankind we seem to hold in our hands, for their weal or woe, the fate of this experiment. If we fail, who shall venture the repetition? If our example shall prove to be one, not of encouragement, but of terror, not fit to be imitated, but fit only to be shunned, where else shall the world look for free models? If this great Western sun be struck out of the firmament, at what other fountain shall the lamp of liberty hereafter be lighted?

5. There was in the breast of Washington one sentiment so deeply felt, so constantly uppermost, that no proper occasion escaped without its utterance. He regarded the Union of these States less as one of our blessings, than as the treasure-house which contained them all. Here, in his judgment, was the great maga

zine of all our means of prosperity; here, as he thought, and as every true American still thinks, are deposited all our animating prospects, all our solid hopes for future greatness.

6. Of all the presumptions indulged by presumptuous man, that is one of the rashest which looks for repeated and favorable opportunities for the deliberate establishment of a united government over distinct and widely-extended communities. Such a thing has happened once in human affairs, and but once; the event stands out as a prominent exception to all ordinary history; and unless we suppose ourselves running into an age of miracles, we may not expect its repetition.

7. Washington, therefore, could regard, and did regard, nothing as of paramount political interest, but the integrity of the Union itself. With a united government, well administered, he saw we had nothing to fear, and without it nothing to hope. The sentiment is just, and its momentous truth should solemnly impress the whole country.

8. The political prosperity which this country has attained, and which it now enjoys, has been acquired mainly through the instrumentality of the present government. While this agent continues, the capacity of attaining to still higher degrees of prosperity exists also. We have, while this lasts, a political life capable of beneficial exertion, with power to resist or overcome misfortunes, to sustain us against the ordinary accidents of human affairs, and to promote, by active efforts, every public interest.

9. But dismemberment strikes at the very being which preserves these faculties. It would lay its rude and ruthless hand on this great agent itself. It would sweep away, not only what we possess, but all power of regaining lost, or acquiring new possessions. It would leave the country, not only bereft of its prosperity and happiness, but without limbs, or organs, or

faculties, by which to exert itself hereafter in the pursuit of that prosperity and happiness.

10. Other misfortunes may be borne, or their effects overcome. If disastrous war sweep our commerce from the ocean, another generation may renew it; if it exhaust our treasury, future industry may replenish it; if it desolate and lay waste our fields, still, under a new cultivation, they will grow green again, and ripen to future harvests. It were but a trifle even if the walls of yonder Capitol were to crumble, if its lofty pillars should fall, and its gorgeous decorations be all covered by the dust of the valley. All these might be rebuilt. But who shall reconstruct the fabric of demolished government?

11. Who shall rear again the well-proportioned columns of constitutional liberty? Who shall frame together the skillful architecture which unites national sovereignty with State rights, individual security, and public prosperity? No, if these columns fall, they will be raised not again. Like the Colosseum and the Par'thenon, they will be destined to a mournful, a melancholy immortality. Bitterer tears, however, will flow over them, than were ever shed over the monuments of Roman or Grecian art; for they will be the remnants of a more glorious edifice than Greece or Rome ever saw, the edifice of constitutional American liberty.

12. But let us hope for better things. Let us trust in that gracious Being who has hitherto held our country as in the hollow of his hand. Let us trust to the virtue and the intelligence of the people, and to the efficacy of religious obligation. Let us trust to the influence of Washington's example. Let us hope that that fear of Heaven which expels all other fear, and that regard to duty which transcends all other regard, may influence public men and private citizens, and lead our country still onward in her happy career. Full of these gratifying anticipations and hopes, let us look